11/18/2009

Shocking CIA Torture News

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

[...]

"The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton.

They go on to reveal the horrors that went on there...

They included eye-gouging; piercing of hands with an electric drill; suspension from a ceiling; electric shock; rape and other forms of sexual abuse; beating of the soles of feet; mock executions; extinguishing cigarettes on the body; and acid baths.

Here is the *torture* Mr. Sifton says happened at this alleged CIA location:

The activities in that prison were illegal," said human rights researcher John Sifton. "They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions."

Oh the horror!

Let us compare those two again.

- eye-gouging; piercing of hands with an electric drill; suspension from a ceiling; electric shock; rape and other forms of sexual abuse; beating of the soles of feet; mock executions; extinguishing cigarettes on the body; and acid baths

- sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions

Yeah, I can see the equivalence now.

Let be realistic. One is torture, and one is essentially severe inconvenience.

Actually, the second example sounds like most C-130 flights I had in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan....